[Vision2020] Response to Paul Kimmell: Part II Robert E. Lee:
Neo-Confederacy by Stealth
Art Deco aka W. Fox
deco at moscow.com
Wed Sep 22 21:40:17 PDT 2004
Robert E. Lee: Neo-Confederacy by Stealth - Using Our Tax Dollars
On August 27, 2004, a pseudo-folksy column by Paul Kimmell appeared in the Daily
News. This column was an apparent attempt to respond to some of the many
criticisms made of Kimmell's actions in his dual role as Moscow Chamber of
Commerce Executive Director and Latah County Commissioner. Because Kimmell's
column did not address certain important issues and dishonestly addressed
others, a multi-part response is in the works to set the record straight. This
is the second part of that response. Please remember while reading the
following that the chamber is supported in large part by our tax dollars and our
patronage of their membership.
Moscow Chamber Board Members Spoon Fed Neo-Confederacy
On August 5, 2004 in the Gritman Hospital Conference Room, Moscow Chamber of
Commerce Executive Director Paul Kimmell gave a "Leadership Presentation" to
select members of the chamber's board of directors.
Directors and officers present included:
Janice McMillan: FirstBank,
Phil Mack: Ambassador Auto,
Darren Malm: Inland Cellular,
Jeff Martin: Gritman Hospital,
Earl Aldrich: Paradise Creek Bicycles,
Kelly Armstrong: Palouse Surgery Center,
Holly Heaton: Paradise Ford Mercury,
Robert Hieronymus: UI University Communications and Marketing,
Thomas McGann: UI Kibbie-ASUI Activity Center,
Jennifer O'Brien: Tomlinson Black Associates, and
Dustin Weitz: Bearable Dentistry.
With many thanks to Tom and Rodna Hansen, a copy of the text and graphics of
this presentation can be viewed and/or downloaded at:
http://www.tomandrodna.com/notonthepalouse/Kimmell/Index.htm
Many members of the community have already publicly commented on this matter on
Vision 2020 and in newspapers serving the Palouse. Most of these writers
commented much more eloquently and much nicer than I will below. Still, there
are a few loose ends that should be attended to.
The presentation made by Kimmell without attribution (read plagiarized) consists
of a number of Power Point slides. There are reproductions of art works
depicting battlefield scenes, most glorifying the confederate army - one in
particular showing the confederate army routing the union (American) army.
There are also several portraits of Robert E. Lee - one apparently a snippet
from the portrait of Lee which has hung in the fourth grade classroom at Logos
School. The presentation includes much fulsome praise of Lee and some of his
leadership principles and other beliefs. The last slide of the presentation
shows the confederate and American flags side by side with the confederate flag
placed first.
Interested readers can view the entire presentation and form their own opinions.
The careful reader, however, will notice some inconsistency in the presentation:
Compare:
1. "There is an art of losing, and Robert E. Lee is its finest teacher.
In a democracy, where opposing viewpoints meet for a test of ballots, it is good
for all of us to know how to lose occasionally, how to yield, peacefully, for
the sake of freedom. Lee is our master in this. The man who fought against the
Union showed us what unity means."
2. "At the close of the struggle, General Lee said to General Grant:
'Grant, you didn't whip me, you just overpowered me, I surrender this day 8,000
men; I do not surrender them to you, I surrender on conditions; it shall not go
down in history I surrendered the Northern Confederate Army of Virginia to you.
It shall go down in history I surrendered on conditions; you have ten men to my
one; my men, too, are barefoot and hungry.'"
Aside from being delusional, Lee's statement in 2 above stands in stark contrast
to the assertion in 1 above and certainly is neither a fine example of
leadership nor a fine example of graciousness.
The truths of the assertions about Lee in Kimmell's presentation are not agreed
upon by historians by a long shot.
Although not attributed (read plagiarized), Kimmell's presentation appears to
have been cribbed from H.W. Crooker III, Robert E. Lee on Leadership: Executive
Lessons in Character, Courage, and Vision, according to a perspicacious Vision
2020 poster. Crooker is a shameless Robert E. Lee apologist (as you can tell by
his idolizing language). Many scholarly views of Lee dispute his generalship,
personal courage, and moral integrity. Some think the huge loss of life
suffered by the confederate army was due in part to Lee's impenetrable
stubbornness and egocentricity [see the quote in 2 above as an example of these
traits].
[What the real facts are about Lee will be argued by historians until the end of
time and are perhaps irrelevant to this discussion. For those interested, there
are internet chat forums, etc. which rehash and refight the Civil War endlessly.
As one might expect, opinions about Lee vary to a great degree with geography
and academic credentials.
One fact, however, is indisputable: Robert E. Lee was a traitor to this
country.
Inappropriateness
As many others have pointed out, the use of Robert E. Lee as an example of great
leadership in Moscow, Idaho, at this time is inappropriate and egregiously
insulting to the majority of the community.
However, one Vision 2020 poster asserted that:
"I also know of the use of Robert E. Lee as an example of leadership in that
chamber retreat, since I've talked to folks who were there, and know why it was
used, and it's not what you think."
The poster did not bother to tell us the why, and neither has the chamber board.
Area business persons are not fighting a war in the nineteenth century. Times
have changed. Missions are different. Today's business people are dealing with
a dizzying pace of rapidly changing technology, hard-to-predict public desires,
a declining work ethic, competition from giant conglomerates, and uncertain
economic conditions. There are hundreds of well-researched, well-informed
writers who speak incisively and practically about leadership and management in
these matters. Why didn't Kimmell choose one of them?
More to the point and contrary to the assertion of even some of those that
question Kimmell's judgment, there is not general historical agreement on the
assertion that Lee's was a great military strategist or a wise, prudent, and/or
effective leader. Of all the great military, social, political, and/or moral
leaders from ancient times until now, Lee would probably not even make the
C-List!
In the lifetime of many of us, Hitler and Osama bin Laden were/are examples of
very effective leaders. Would anyone with both oars in the water even begin
think that using either of these as examples of leadership would not offend most
of the citizens of Moscow? And Robert E. Lee? - especially after the community
uproar over Christ Church Cult Master Douglas Wilson's
historical-fiction-parading-as-fact tract: Southern Slavery: As It Was.
I urge everyone who has read this far to pause and to view Kimmell's
presentation at the website given above. It is nothing but fulsome
neo-confederate propaganda. This is the same unscholarly, odious garbage that
is taught at Logos School, NSA, and other Christ Church Cult institutions.
For those that might be skeptical, perhaps a read of Taliban on the Palouse, A
religious empire based in Idaho is part of the far-right theological movement
fueling neo-Confederate groups, by Mark Potok of the SPLC, might be informative.
That article is found at:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=645
It is especially insulting of the chamber board to have us believe that
Kimmell's presentation was simply a generous, selfless effort to help make
leaders of the now beleaguered chamber-board-in-hiding. To see the real
motivation of this presentation, one only need read the last paragraphs of
Potok's article:
"But he [Wilson] offered a substantial clue last Dec. 28 [2003], when, in the
midst of the controversy, he gave a sermon discussing evangelistic "warfare" to
his congregation.
"Good Christians, he said, needed to look for "decisive points" in society,
places that are both "strategic and feasible" targets to be "taken." New York
City, for instance, is strategic but not feasible - too many godless liberals.
Other places are feasible but not strategic - unimportant places in the
theological wars that Wilson foresees.
"But," Douglas Wilson added in an upbeat note that day, "Small towns with major
universities (Moscow and Pullman, say) are both."
The Non-Apology
After word got around the community about Kimmell's Robert E. Lee presentation,
there was a general uproar. Numerous citizens let chamber members and board
members know what they thought. A few chamber board members have now said in
private that the presentation was a huge mistake. Partly as a response to
community reaction Kimmell offered the following in the September 17, 2004
edition of the Daily News:
Much has been written lately of my use of Gen. Robert E. Lee as an example of
leadership skills. Little did I realize how I would offend some in our community
by using Lee. For this, I am truly sorry and want you to know there were no
other motives or intentions on my part to further perpetuate the local debate
among some. This is unfortunate and, again, I failed to consider the effect
this might have or how deeply it may have offended some of you.
Please know I do not wish to cause harm to anyone in this rich and culturally
diverse community. I underestimated the effect of my presentation and, in the
future, I will be more careful in both my words and actions. Thank you.
Paul J. Kimmell
This is not an apology! It is an insult and a tissue of lies.
Consider: "Little did I realize how I would offend some in our community by
using Lee."
This is blame-the-victim slander, i.e. there is something wrong with you if you
were offended.
What Kimmell is really saying: "Even in their wildest dreams, any wise and
experienced man of the world, like myself, would never have predicted that any
person except one of grossly subnormal intelligence could be the least bit
offended by anything in my presentation. Therefore, there must be something
very, very wrong with you."
Consider again: "Little did I realize how I would offend some in our community
by using Lee."
If Kimmell really believes this statement then he is so inept, witless,
insensitive to, and clueless about community values that his dismissal as
executive director of the chamber should be instantaneous. With this degree of
witlessness, he cannot be anything but an expensive, embarrassing liability to
the chamber.
On the other had, if Kimmell really had a good idea beforehand what the likely
community reaction to his Robert E. Lee presentation would be, then the causing
of the perhaps irreparable loss of respect, goodwill, and confidence in chamber
is also more than a sufficient reason for his instantaneous dismissal.
Robert E. Lee was a traitor to the United States. Some people in the community,
including battlefield experienced veterans, consider the juxtapositioning of the
American flag with the confederate flag, especially with the confederate flag
placed first, by Kimmell to be a traitorous act and the perpetrator also not
very short of being a traitor.
The Silence of the Chamber Board
In making the following statements I am not indicting all of the chamber board
members. Some have come to realize that the Robert E. Lee presentation was an
egregious error of judgment, thoroughly insulting to the community, and has
caused a major, if not insurmountable, public relations problem for the chamber.
So that he in particular is not considered a villain, I have talked to Earl
Aldrich of Paradise Creek Bicycles about this at length. He is aware of
community feelings and the profundity of the mistake. He has been trying to get
the board to rectify it. The following remarks apply to the board acting as a
unit.
A statement perhaps epitomizing a great deal of the community sentiment about
this ugly mess was made by Melynda Huskey in a Vision 2020 post:
"If Pat is right, and the majority of the Board of the Chamber found this
presentation inoffensive, I'm profoundly disturbed. They are clearly out of
step not only with me, but with most of our community. I can't believe that
most business owners in our town want to be represented by a body which affirms
neo-Confederate ideology - but maybe I'm wrong. If so, I want to know about it.
"This choice is more than an error in judgment: the choice of a pro-slavery
Confederate general as a model of leadership for the Moscow business community
is a slap in the face to anyone who took issue with Southern Slaver: As It Was.
I'm shocked that local businesspeople, including representatives of the
University, and of our city and county government, sat through a presentation
praising a Confederate general and his justification of slaveholding without a
single demur. I'm appalled that the Chamber Board has been silent in the
subsequent brouhaha, except to say that Paul is a nice man."
Add the following to Melynda's list of the objectionable attributes of Kimmel's
presentation: racism, sexism, subliminal religious cult promulgation, and
traitorous idolatry.
In particular, I am galled by the fact that two representatives, Robert
Hieronymus and Thomas McGann (both present during the presentation), of the
University of Idaho, which all of us support with our tax dollars and many of us
support with our patronage and contributions, have been allowed to continue
officially representing the university on the chamber board.
Does the university now support using our tax dollars to promulgate
neo-confederacy and a toxic religious cult? Does the university now support
using our tax dollars to practice discriminatory hiring/contracting practices?
[See Part 1 of this series.] If not, they better tell us quite rapidly not only
with clear, unequivocal words, but concrete actions.
Repeat: Robert E. Lee was a traitor to the United States. Some people in the
community, including battlefield experienced veterans, consider the
juxtapositioning of the American flag with the confederate flag, especially with
the confederate flag placed first, by Kimmell to be a traitorous act and the
perpetrator also not very short of being a traitor.
I hope the chamber board will soon speak on this issue and act in a manner such
that the same conclusion cannot be drawn of them.
/s/ Wayne A. Fox
Wayne A. Fox
1009 Karen Lane
P.O. Box 9421
Moscow, ID 83843
(208) 882-7975
waf at moscow.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20040922/55ac4abb/attachment-0001.htm
More information about the Vision2020
mailing list